Blogger's new post editor

As I was working on a new chapter for my upcoming second edition of Publishing a blog with Blogger: Visual QuickStart Guide I happened to be wandering about the Settings area of my example blog (Go to your Dashboard, choose Settings | Basic and scroll down almost to the bottom.) And there was this option I'd never seen before: "Updated editor: Check out the latest features".



I checked the radio button, saved my settings, and went directly to write this post. The thing I like best is the little resize box in the bottom right corner of the window.






Drag down and you can make the editing area a decent size. No more scrolling up and down over and over again to edit long posts!

The Link tool is pretty nice too. Select some text, and then click Link in the toolbar.  A new Link dialog box appears. There's a box where you can copy in a regular URL from the Web. Or click the new Email address link to make a link to an email address. Most appreciated is the Test this link button which lets you test the link to make sure it works (without jumping into some other window and forgetting to save your post's changes).



Once the link has been created, if you click on it in in Compose mode, you'll see the link's URL so that you can visit the link destination again (in a new tab), a Change button that brings you back to the Link box so you can modify the link, and a Remove button that lets you get rid of the link (but not the clickable text).

Very nicely designed.

There are a number of other welcome changes which I'll be documenting in my new book. But I'd recommend checking out the new post editor right away!